KUALA LUMPUR – The government has been urged to give priority to patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) in its COVID-19 vaccination programme.
The call was jointly made by National Kidney Foundation chairman Datuk Dr Zaki Morad, Malaysian Society of Nephrology president Prof Dr Abdul Halim Abdul Gafor and Malaysian Society of Transplantation president Dr Rosnawati Yahya
They said this would reduce overcrowding in the Ministry of Health’s haemodialysis (HD) centres and help return some normalcy to HD centres run by private and non-governmental organisations.
They said priority should be given to groups such as patients on haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis, patients with functioning kidney transplants and patients with CKD stage 3-4 (pre-dialysis).
The trio said they were concerned on the impact of COVID-19 infection in patients with CKD, especially those with CKD stage 5 who are receiving treatment with dialysis or kidney transplantation.
“Experience worldwide has shown this group of patients are very vulnerable to serious complications of COVID-19 infection and there is significant mortality amongst those infected.
‘’Similarly, there is an increased risk of healthcare workers (HCW) attending to these patients acquiring this infection due to frequent encounters,” they said.
They said there are now about 50,000 patients living on dialysis or have a functioning kidney transplant in the country, with the vast majority of them on haemodialysis.
The huge financial impact on a patient and his family, the staff and the HD centre’s management once a COVID-19 infection happens is also a concern.
“There are tests for the virus to be done, PPEs to be donned, and the affected centre has to be sanitised,” the statement said.
Vaccine to arrive end of month
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah meanwhile in a related development has said that the country is expected to receive the first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine on Feb 26.
He said that once arrived, the vaccine will be distributed in stages to the states within a week or two.
Dr Noor Hisham said this after participating in the COVID-19 Emergency Management Technical Committee meeting at the Menteri Besar Office at Wisma Darul Iman, here, today.
Also present was Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar.
Malaysia was previously reported to have purchased 12.8 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine and has subsequently committed to purchase an additional 12.2 million doses of the same vaccine.
In the meantime, he said that to date, a total of 141 volunteers have received injections in the Phase 3 clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccine developed and sponsored by China’s Institute of Medical Biology Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (IMBCAMS).
They were among the 3,000 volunteers, aged 18 and above, who were selected based on set criteria.
“We only want 3,000 volunteers but the number of applicants is more than that number, so we will make a selection,” he said.
Late reporting to be resolved soon
Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham also hoped that the late reporting of cases to the National Crisis Preparedness and Emergency Response Centre (CPRC) of the Ministry of Health (MOH), including from private facilities, would be resolved within a week.
He also hoped that registered private facilities such as private clinics and hospitals can report positive cases as soon as possible or before 12 noon every day to the CPRC in their respective states.
“What we see is private laboratories, when they get the results they have to include the results in the public health information system, so if there is a delay in entering the data, then we will receive the data late,” he said.
Yesterday Dr Noor Hisham, in a statement, said that the sharp increase in the number of daily cases, exceeding 5,000 on three consecutive days, was due to the late reporting of cases to the National CPRC, including cases detected positive in 2020.
This sharp increase in cases is due to targeted workplace screening, close contact screening and high-risk group screening conducted on a large scale in several states.
